There are days my mind is an incessant whir of voices. Characters rise from the chaos, demanding their stories be told. I create and layer these wondrous figments of my imagination. I plot, outline chapters, and hope like hell that somehow when I’m done, I’ll have written a story someone will want to read. Preferably, someone who isn’t tied to me by marriage or DNA.

I delete twenty words for every ten I keep.

Lie.

I delete twenty words for every two that make the cut. I struggle with verbiage and question the use of the word ‘that’ every time I type it.  Blank pages are both magical and terrifying.

I toil away constructing the perfect sentence. With every story a piece of my heart bleeds out across the pages; keystrokes being my weapon of choice. Commas confuse me, so I sprinkle them everywhere like confetti. I labor over eighty thousand words, the way a mother labors over her child. When I push publish, it feels as though I’m walking into the middle of a crowed stadium without a stitch of clothing to hide my naked soul.

Writing is scary. But not writing…is unimaginable. I don’t worry over the voices in my head. I’m fearful of the day they’ll cease to exist.